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Crash Bandicoot and Mario Kart

1)How has the introduction of 32 and 64-bit gaming affected the aesthetics of games?

This has allowed more of a freedom to express artistic freedom; adding an allowance of more colors and add the addition of 3D texturing (saving precious memory). The addition of more memory meant less sparse worlds with more assets, players, animations and much more! Game assets and overall look have a true 3D sense to them, increasing immersion as opposed to only Pseudo 3D of 4th generation games/consoles.

2) Which of the two games do you feel is visually more advanced in terms of 32 and 64- bit technology and why?

I feel that Crash Bandicoot is actually more advanced than Mario-Kart. This is because the levels are more populated and immersive, presenting the player with a much more focused and enjoyable gaming experience. Although Crash bandicoots face on gameplay means the player is basically rolling down a populated corridor. Whereas Mario-kart is a bit bare but has more dynamism with the 3rd person camera in levels. Crash bandicoot is preserving it’s on screen space for it’s aesthetically pleasing, stylised, scrolling gameplay. Mario Kart is rather nice, considering there are around twelve players on screen at a time that can collide and animate in unison actually make it a very visually interesting game. Especially how much memory they had to work with back then.

3) How does the camera angle effect gameplay?Can you identify any bugs?

As shown in the picture below, the constant movement of the player & forced forward facing perspective means that the player is making mistakes due to the restricted angles of the camera. Whether it’s the timed game areas or not seeing your full environment, the player is at a disadvantage. Also bugs include; falling through the terrain; getting caught in terrain; dying/losing randomly and glitching animations. Not only does this break immersion, it halts gameplay and causes much anger with the player.

4) How does the 3D graphic (first generation polygons) compare to games now?

They’re a lot more basic, they have far less polygons and are more blocky because of this. This was mainly because of the fact that the computers/console software could not hold enough memory to hold all the animation, polys and other aesthetic changes to make game better. The games actually had an overall aesthetic of stylised cartoon style. Modern games allow for so much polys and memory that the art can replicate modded items that are similar to those in real life; meaning that the player doesn’t have to be in a stylised game because it’s all their console can do (immersing the players).